This is the ongoing sequel to `Dark Wishes', both copyrighted under Nifty and International Common Law. This is a love story of kings and magic. How you choose to interpret the way the characters show their love for each other is at your discretion.
Unspoken Wishes
M.C.Gordon
Part One: Markel
Chapter Six
Efren ran blindly through the dark night, slipping on the ice several times. He fell more times than he could count and, with the final fall, felt the bones in his right arm snap. Overwhelmed by pain he managed to drag himself until he was hidden behind a cluster of stones. The night was bitterly cold and it had begun to snow again.
Leaning against one of the stones, the lad clenched his eyes to hold back tears that threatened, knowing that they would freeze in his eyes and eyelashes. How could he have touched the king's hand?
How dare he feel the heat that shot through his veins and caused his manhood to stir and make its presence know? The Qell chose, were not chosen. King Tynan had made no indication of desire for him. How then could his body have betrayed him so? Unsure of how he should comport himself in the presence of men of his own persuasion, he had allowed himself to feel desire rise and announce itself in the person of his special appendage. His own shock at his reaction had sent him fleeing the warmth and comfort of the small shelter without cloak or blanket.
Bitter cold surrounded Efren and, in spite of the pain in his broken arm, he gave in to the call of the cold. Winter would claim him and he would cause no further disgrace to himself or his kin. A sad smile graced the handsome face; for a short yet endless moment in time he had known the touch of one such as himself.
. . .
"What?" Tynan asked when Efren had bolted from the only warm shelter of Aolane. "Why did the boy ..? I said nothing. I did nothing," he spoke to Iashain who was glancing at him with a questioning look.
"We will ask his reason when we find him, for find him we must. He may become lost or injured, and this is too terrible a night for any living soul to be without shelter," Iashain replied. "I know you did no wrong, brother," he added. "Let us first see if our magic can find in which direction he fled. He will freeze to death if we stumble about aimlessly in search of him."
The two lords of magic joined hands and minds and cast out into the darkness, searching for the young man. "I cannot feel his mind," Iashain finally said. "He can hide his thoughts, or he is lost to us so swiftly."
"Efren has no gift," Usan said, full of fear for the lad was kin and his responsibility.
"Then we must seek others who have eyes that may see him," Tynan replied. Again they cast their thoughts outward, asking for the help of any living thing that might be about in the bitterness of the winter night.
It stopped suddenly, the large beast stalking the still figure lying against solitary stones. Hunger had driven it from the cave that gave shelter from the storm, hunger and the sound of something pulling itself across the ice. Large yellow eyes looked this way and that, trying to locate the voices that called.
Ears twitched against the blowing wind. Shaking itself loose from imaginings, the creature crouched against the ground and began once again to inch slowly forward. The prey was very near.
Tynan broke the touch with Iashain and grabbed his cloak from a peg near the hearth. "I know now where Efren is," he said. "Add to the fire and prepare warm blankets. I will return with him as quickly as I can."
Quickly indeed, but carefully because of the ice, the Qell made his way toward the pile of stone he could see through rounded yellow eyes. He cast a warning toward the creature that had helped locate Efren and promised meat at the eastern wall of the castle.
The giant cat, unique in Elanen, reluctantly turned from his prey. He rose, barely visible in the falling snow except for dark grey stripes, and made his way toward the eastern wall where a hare appeared frozen in the sudden storm.
Tynan went quickly to the fallen body of Efren. There were puddles of ice on the lad's face where tears had finally fallen and frozen. The Qell wrapped the cloak around him, noting the awkward angle of the right arm. Calling on Iashain's mind for added magic, he breathed warm breath across the boy's frozen face and into his lungs. Sensing a shallow intake of breath, Tynan lifted the still form and hurried back to what served as the seat of power for the Qell Kings.
. . .
The world came slowly into focus when Efren opened his eyes on the third day after his death-flight. He knew he was lying on a soft cot wrapped in blankets. He stirred restlessly and a few fragments of ice were placed in his parched mouth. He tried to move, only to cry out softly at the pain in his arm.
"He wakens," Markel whispered to Tynan who had fallen asleep near the hearth after hours of vigil.
The tall lord yawned, stood, and took the four steps that brought him back to Efren's cot. "Thank you," he told Markel. "I will tend him now."
"I do not mind my lap as his pillow," Markel replied.
"You do not but he might," Tynan said, full of relief that the lad was finally showing signs of life.
"Your lap will not make a comfortable pillow until Frina's cooking adds more weight to your spare frame. Tend to your lover, but be still about it for the others still sleep."
Markel blushed, for he and Iashain had not lain with each other since Tynan brought Efren in from the frozen cold and their need was so strong that everyone was aware of it.
Tynan eased himself to the cot, slid beneath the blankets, and gently took Efren into his arms, the injured right arm resting against his chest. The boy was breathing more easily, for the distressing rattle that had started in his lungs seemed to have passed.
"Gently," the great lord whispered as Efren began to stir. "You were near to death and have been gravely ill. If you move too quickly you will only cause yourself pain."
Efren slowly opened his eyes and found himself gazing into the odd silver eyes of the Qell. He tried to speak but Tynan placed a finger across his lips to prevent words. He was surprised beyond belief when his king kissed the fingers of his uninjured left hand.
"You are well and safe now," Tynan told him. "I can ease the pain in your arm until it has healed. But never, ever, go wildly into the night again," he added with a touch of anger born of fear.
"I offended you when my fingers touched yours," Efren managed to whisper.
"Nay, lad," Tynan returned, "I was not offended. I found beauty in your touch. You did not give me time to respond. And now we must wait until your arm and bruises have healed."
"Then you are not angry that I touched you and was filled with desire for you?" Efren asked, still unsure of himself.
"I was not angry," Tynan replied. "Do I not now hold you in my arms? Your countenance overwhelms me, so fair and desirable you are. But we will speak of this later. Now you must rest and mend in heart and body. Soon enough the day will come when I will claim you as my own, if you will have me."
"If, My Lord?" Efren asked through a haze of pain and the beginnings of contentment. "I would have you, but why would you want me?"
"None of our brothers before us questioned the love they found," Tynan replied. "Who am I to ask why Markel and Iashain found love from the moment they met while I, who had traveled with Markel, felt no love for him at all? And will I now ask why you have touched my heart?"
He leaned gently across Efren, mindful of the broken arm, and cupped the lad's face with his right hand. Gazing into the amber-flecked grey eyes barely visible in the light of the hearth-fire, he brought their lips together.
Efren clung eagerly to the kiss, embraced it, and sought to gain more from it, whimpering from desire as much as from the pain in his arm.
"Not now," Tynan whispered, barely able to keep his own passion under control. "You must mend and be sure that this is what you want before we join together."
A touch, a wish made but not spoken, freed Efren from the pain in his arm and sent him into restful sleep. Tynan molded himself around the sleeping body of the young man he intended to make his lover, granting warmth and protective magic.
Deep in the forests of Elanen the grandmothers sensed that both of the Qell had found those they would love. The healing of the world had begun.